Tata

Indian automaker TATA Motors has created the MBPV "Micro Bullet-Proof Vehicle”, not as a typical combat vehicle, but instead, it is a protective mobile solution that operates in confined spaces.

Tata Motors might not be a big name in Europe and the U.S., but it one of the most important carmakers in Asia. Founded in 1945, Tata is now selling a wide range of cars and commercial vehicles, but it’s better known for owning Jaguar Land Rover, which it purchased from Ford in 2008. The Indian company is now trying to expand in markets outside Asia, and it’s joining the bigger, global auto shows with new concept cars. One such vehicle is the H5X, which was launched at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show as a preview for an upcoming crossover.

Tata says that the H5X "provides a glimpse of the future generation of Tata Motors SUV’s in terms of design, technology, and sheer capabilities" and that it sports the brand’s upcoming design language, called the Impact 2.0. It’s also the first vehicle based the new Optimal Modular Efficient Global Advanced Architecture, which developed in collaboration with Jaguar Land Rover. Local media says that the production version will be aimed at crossovers like the Jeep Compass and the Mahindra XUV500 in India. But needless to say, the H5X will probably hit global markets as Tata’s first truly contemporary crossover sometime in 2019.

Continue reading to learn more about the Tata H5X Concept.

Tata Motors isn’t very well known outside of its own market, but if it manages to turn out production models from its most recent concepts, it could find itself in the limelight. The 45X Coupe and H5X Concepts weren’t bad, but it’s almost like we’re watching the brand grow a little bit at a time, and you’ll think the same thing once you take a good look at the Tata E-Vision – an electric concept that has the looks to put some serious hurt on some of the big boys, if Tata can ever actually bring it to the market.

With so many hot supercars and concepts on the 2018 Geneva Motor Show floor, it’s easy to ignore the more mundane automobiles or vehicles from lesser known automakers. But, if you join this year’s event, make sure you stop by the Tata Motors booth because the Indian carmaker has three interesting concepts on display. One of them is the H5X, a brand-new crossover concept that will inspire Tata’s upcoming people haulers.

Established more than 70 years ago, Tata Motors is a big name in India, but didn’t make a big impact on the global market until it acquired Jaguar Land Rover from Ford Motor Company back in 2008. The company actually managed to revive both the Jaguar and Land Rover brand and is now looking to join big markets outside Asia with products wearing the "Tata" badge. This is why it brought three different vehicles at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show, one of which is the E-Vision.

A year after turning a lot of heads with the Racemo two-seater sports car concept, Indian automaker Tata is back at the Geneva Motor Show with three new concepts. One of these concepts is called the 45X, a premium-looking hatchback that could pave the way for Tata’s future in the segment. The 45X was joined in Geneva by the H5X SUV and the E-Vision all-electric sedan.

Tata Motors, a prominent Indian automaker and parent company to Jaguar Land Rover, is set to debut a sedan concept based on its 45X Hatchback Concept launched at India’s 2018 Auto Expo. The new model will supposedly be called the 45X Sedan. Its debut will happen at the 2018 Geneva International Motor Show, which kicks off March 6.

The 45X Sedan will share the same underpinnings as the 45X Hatchback – Tata’s futuristic AMP platform. The architecture is designed to accommodate both left- and right-hand driving position, along with complying with future crash testing regulations.

Tata is expected to release production versions of both the 45X Hatchback and Sedan, with both targeting the premium side of their respective markets. The hatch is due first with an expected on-sale date of 2019 in India. Tata will likely announce its plans for the 45X Sedan at the Geneva show.

Continue reading for more information.

Talk about a disappointing turn of events, especially after the excitement surrounding a possible Tata sports car hit its stride at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show with the introduction of the Tamo Racemo. Now it looks like we’re unlikely to see the Tamo Racemo, or any other Tata sports car for that matter, in the near future. A report from Autocar India has doused the excitement surrounding the Tamo Racemo as it appears that Tata is putting the project on ice as part of its plans to “reduce investments in non-core business ideas.”

Though the details behind the about-face turn have yet to be confirmed, the publication did cite sources within the company who believe that the sports car project is, at the very least, hanging by a thread. The costs of building the sports car seem to be the biggest culprit behind this sudden about-face. At the very least, it was a casualty of a bigger goal the company is now moving on to, which includes streamlining its business models in an effort to improve production volume and regain market shares. None of these new directives have the Tamo Racemo in it, which is a shame considering that it’s debut earlier this year in Geneva was met with so much promise. None of that excitement matters now, though, because at the end of the day, the proverbial “bottom line” has once again dictated its terms on another automaker. Hopefully, Tata can sort out all of the current issues it has and revisit the Tamo Racemo in the future. Just don’t count on it happening anytime soon.

Continue after the jump to read the full story

There’s certainly no shortage of sports cars at the Geneva International Motor Show this year, with everything from affordable entry-level roadsters, to exotic top-dollar hyperspace mobiles on the list of debuts. Slotting in there somewhere is this – the Tamo Racemo, the latest product from Indian automaker Tata Motors. Tata is launching a new sub-brand called Tamo, and the Racemo is its first creation.

Described as “India’s first digitally native, connected, ‘phygital’ experience,” the mid-engine, two-door sports coupe seats two passengers and gets loads of performance cues inside and out. And if you’re asking yourself what “phygital” is supposed to be, the best way to describe it is that it offers a combination of features from both the physical and digital realms.

Basically, you could call this thing India’s first connected car. It comes replete with a ton of techy features, and it’ll be available for download via the Forza Horizon 3 gaming platform.

Not only that, but Tamo is offering a high-performance competition version called the Racemo+, and it’s likely Tamo will offer more inspired creations like this in the near future.

Production for the Racemo will be limited at 250 units, none of which are likely to make it stateside. For now, read on for further specs on the Tamo Racemo.

Continue reading for the full story.

The news about Jaguar Land Rover’s parent company, the India-based Tata, using some of JLR’s platforms for its own models isn’t really news. That information has been floating around since last summer. However, it appears Tata has now tapped the new Land Rover Discovery Sport’s LR-MS underpinnings to be the first platform it will use in constructing a new segment of “world-class” vehicles.

Here at TopSpeed, we don’t pay much attention to Tata Motors, mostly because it does not produce high-performance supercars. Today, however, we bring you tragic news concerning the company, as its managing director Karl Slym died yesterday after a fall from a Bangkok hotel. While the circumstances of his death were not disclosed initially, it is now rumored that the police are investigating his death as a possible suicide.

The incident happened at a Bangkok hotel where Slym was attending a board meeting. According to reports, a suicide note was found in Slym’s hotel room on the 22nd floor. Police are still investigating his death and a final ruling will be announced in about a week, following an autopsy.

Before joining Tata Motors, Karl Slym worked for Toyota UK, and then General Motors in India and China. Slym was named managing director of Tata Motors in October 2012.

As you probably expected, Slym’s death also affected Tata’s shares: this morning they tumbled almost 5 percent in Mumbai.

Click past the jump to read more about Tata’s best-known car, the Nano.

It’s been about three years since Tata bought Jaguar and Land Roverfrom one of America’s big top three - Ford - and now the company is thinking of taking the last few necessary steps to completely cut ties with the former owner. A new Tata annual report has been released stating that the company is considering a joint engine-development program with its Jaguar Land Rover unit. If pushed through, the new engine could cement the two brands’ independence from Ford.

"To optimize the synergistic strengths between JLR and Tata Motors in India, an examination is also under way on a joint engine development program which would have manufacturing facilities both in the U.K. and India," Ratan Tata said in a recent interview.

These new engines will be a big step for the Indian company, who are beginning to pick up speed with models like the Range Rover Evoque and the new Jaguar XK and XF. Our concern will be for future models which will need adequate engines to obtain proper performance numbers matching that of the Ford-built engines. Whether or not Tata has the ability to pull something like this off is still up in the air.

Poor Tata.

On any other motor show, their cute little concept vehicle called the ’Pixel’ would have gathered its fair share of attention. Unfortunately, it’s the Geneva Motor Show, where every automaker and their mother are all looking to put their best feet forward in all their attempts to showcase their latest rides.

So the Pixel has gone on largely unnoticed. So we’re here to show some love to our buddies over at India and give the Pixel its just do.

For starters, the Pixel Concept has got a few features that will surely endear Tata to futuristic city-car lovers, including the set of scissor doors that opens all the way up to save external ergonomic space. It also has a new transmission called the "Zero Turn toroidal traction-drive Infinitely Variable Transmission" (IVT). What it does, apart from all the standard items on its list, is rotate one rear wheel forward and the other backward that when combined with acute angles on the front wheels, allowing the car to have a turning circle of just 8.5 feet.

As for the engine, there’s nothing exciting about. It’s a 1.2-liter turbocharged diesel engine that carries an estimated fuel consumption of a pretty efficient 69 miles per gallon.

Say what you want about Tata and the Nano, but you have to give the Indian automaker some credit for thinking way out of the box with their Pixel Concept.

It’s cute, charming, and stylish - three qualities that you can’t say about the Nano.

Although you’ve probably never heard of the Tata Safari, it’s a pretty big seller in other parts of the world. For 2011, there is a new model, although it still appears to be stuck in 1999. It will go on sale in India in the early part of 2011, followed by Europe later in the year.

The new model will pick up where the old one left off, but with more technical updates, a new design, and more attention to fit and finish. This means that the price will rise, but Tata is debating on continuing the production of the previous model, as a low cost variant. Hard to imagine BMW doing that with one of their models isn’t it?

The 2011 Tata Safari SUV will be based on its sibling Aria’s platform which will make the car more rigid and a better handler. The new model will also have lots of space and will be loaded with features such as a leather-wrapped steering wheel, a silver finish on the center console, Climate Control, and much more.

Tata will also use some of the technical know how from Jaguar Land Rover on the new Safari to help sales in Europe. The motor should be 2.2-liter four-cylinder diesel with 140 horsepower.

Hit the jump for the full review.

Tata Motors may have a slew of SUVs on its portfolio, not to mention owning Land Rover, but the Indian-based automaker is finally ready to dive into the crossover market with the launch of the Aria.

The crossover is powered by a 2.2-liter diesel engine that produces around 140 horsepower. It also comes with a number of features including traction control, ABS, ESP, six air bags, and a higher ride height that makes it look more like an SUV than what’s classified as a crossover.

The Aria’s interior is also chalk-full of high-end features including power mirrors, rain sensing wipers, a GPS nav-sat system, automatic climate control, height adjustable seats, glove box chiller, and Bluetooth. The features seem fitting for a vehicle Tata describes as a “luxurious creation with the finesse of a sedan and the muscle of an SUV all blended in one car.”

Tata has yet to release pricing and availability of the Aria crossover, but according to the brand, the car will most likely be sold in India exclusively.

Tata Motors Ltd., the owner of Jaguar Land Rover, came away with a nice chunk of change in the first quarter of the automotive fiscal year. Not to mention a healthy climb for its stock.

The company posted a $430 million profit, which helped the stock climb 5.6 percent to a 19-year high, according to Bloomberg. That is nearly twice the amount of profit that analysts – and we use that term loosely – predicted. Sales for the company increased by 64 percent to $5.8 billion.

Jaguar Land Rover played a big role in all this, posting a $370 million profit during the first quarter. Sales increased from 35,947 to 57,153. That sales jump can easily be attributed to their fantastic new cars, including the XF and the XJ.

Tata was even successful with their own car and truck division, as it saw a 48 percent increase to a total of 181,708 vehicles sold, which included 14,779 Nano cars. That growth can be attributed to the strength of India’s economy.

For $2,000 a pop, the Tata Nano city car is about as affordable as any production car you can find on the planet. And given its relatively cheap price tag, nobody will ever mistake the Nano for one of the fastest and sturdiest cars out there.

These days, the Nano has been on-fire in the news lately, and we mean that literally. After three separate incidents were reported last year of a Nano going up in flames, we now bring you episode number four.

According to an Indian news report, this Nano inexplicably burst into flames for no apparent reason. The owner of the car, insurance agent Satish Sawant and his chauffeur – don’t ask us why a Nano needs a chauffer – escaped the incident without any injuries, although they were as dumbfounded as the rest of us as to how the Nano – a car that was only recently purchased – caught fire just like that.

Continued after the jump.

Much like its Italian counterpart Fiat, Tata seems to be going against the trend these days by purchasing as many car brands as it can possibly acquire. After having bought Jaguar and Land Rover, the Indian-based manufacturer is already lining up a package to purchase Pininfarina.

The Italian coachbuilder’s parent company, Pincar, recently put its 50.7% stake in the company out on the market and has even hired a bank to field prospective buyers. It seems like an odd pairing but that’s also what everybody said when word spread about Tata’s intent to purchase two luxury British brands in Jaguar and Land Rover – and we all know how that turned out.

Besides, it’s not like Tata and Pininfarina have no history together. If you might recall, the coachbuilders from the land of pizza were the ones who designed the Prima, Tata’s concept car, which appeared at the Geneva Motor Show a few months ago. If Tata does end up purchasing Pininfarina, it only shows that the Indian car makers are poised to become – if they’re not already – serious players in the auto industry for many years to come.

It wasn’t that long ago when Tata Motors raised a lot of eyebrows when it purchased Jaguar and Land Rover, two struggling brands that were in bad need of resuscitation. For a while, it seemed like the purchase was going to backfire on the folks from India. It certainly didn’t help when the two British brands reported losses in excess of $1 billion last year while Tata also dealing with losses of over half a billion by themselves.

But now, thanks in part to the strong showing of the Jaguar XF and XJ series and recent news that Land Rover is set to increase production due to forecasts of strong demand for its Discover and Range Rover Sport SUVs, it’s looking like Tata is beginning to show everyone precisely why they bought these two brands in the first place.

Continued after the jump.

Talk about a bittersweet ceremony.

Tata Motors finally launched its two newest brands, Jaguar and Land Rover, in India despite growing concerns of plunging sales and looming threats of job insecurity and factory closures dampening what should have been a momentous occasion for the Indian automaker.

Tata acquired the two luxury brands from Ford in March 2008 to the tune of $2.3 billion and while it was a monumental acquisition at the time, the continued struggles of Jaguar and Land Rover has sapped some of Tata’s good fortune. Ever since Tata acquired the two brands, the company has lost over $504 million, marking the first time since 2001 that Tata has reported an annual loss on their bottom line.

We don’t blame Tata for this acquisition. After all, adding two luxury brands to your company roster is a deal that you’d be ill-advised to pass up. Unfortunately, they just did it at the wrong time – soon after they made the purchase, the global economy collapsed. Talk about bad timing.

Continued after the jump

Tata Motors Ltd.’s purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover caught the auto industry by surprise. As far as the water cooler talk surrounding the purchase was considered, a familiar question was repeatedly asked: How can a truck-maker from India end up buying two of the most luxurious brands in the world today?

Now, it seems that the purchase has come back and turned the tables on the Indian truck giant.

For the first time in seven years, Tata has posted a consolidated net loss of over 25 billion rupees ($520 million) from the period of April 2008 up to March 2009. This, of course, is a stark contrast from Tata’s performance a year ago when it made a net income of 22 billion rupees.

The culprits for this unfortunate about-face in company fortunes lies in the plummeting sales of the industry’s luxury car segment as to which both Jaguar and Land Rover are staples. For one, Land Rover sales fell to 120,000 after selling a little under 200,000 units the year before. Similarly, the sale of Jaguar vehicles met a similar fate, falling to 47,000 units from 50,000 the previous year.

Continued after the jump.

Given that we’re all living through one of the worst economic times since The Great Depression, it seems that money pinching and budget tightening has become the new fad these days.

So when the topic of purchasing a cheap car surfaces, there aren’t a lot of manufacturers that can offer more for less than the Tata Nano.

With a price tag that comes up to only $2,200 in India, including taxes and fees, the Tata Nano – not to be mistaken for the Macintosh MP3 player - is becoming the latest must-have car of the cash-strapped man.

While it doesn’t look the least bit imposing, the Nano is still less than a quarter of the next set of cheap cars you can find anywhere.

After all, when you strip down the essentials of a car, the most obvious need is for you to be able to get to Point B from Point A, which after all is what we’re all looking for, right?

Continued after the jump.

The Tata Nano is definitely not the kind of car that catches a lot of buzz. However the Pr1ma Concept, revealed at the Geneva Motor Show, is. With this concept Tata Motors has taken a huge step forward. The vehicle was designed byPininfarina, and offers an indication of how the next generation of Tata saloons might be interpreted. The focus is on the distinctive, elegant design.

Conceived to provide a luxurious level of comfort, this 4-door has a straight-forward but very refined design. All this combined with twisting lines give the car the personality of a coupe. It is a solution that immediately adds value, compared to the basic essential design usually associated with the Tata brand.

The Tata Pr1ma addresses a higher segment of drivers; the external and internal measurements are larger than those of the Indigo, thanks in part to a longer wheelbase. The design balances fluidity and tension, and the result is an elegant look, that manages to be both classic and modern. This type of creation is what the Indian automaker needs to elevate themselves to the next level of automotive manufacturing. You may even see them popping up here in the U.S.

Press release after the jump.